Part: 1
What is the SNOD unit? Well, the Super Natural Operations Division is, or was, a unit in the CIA SAD division that’s in charge of doing exactly what the name sounds like. We conducted operations involving the Supernatrual. We were good at it. Way too good at it.
I was recruited from a Delta Force unit after a mission in Brazil. We’d been tracking a human trafficking group that was shipping some girls in from Mexico. One that was run by a man we knew as Hector Ramirez. We’d set up a sting operation with the Rio De Janeiro Police Department. Of course this was 2010, their whole police department was crawling with corrupt bastards.
Now, normally the US government doesn’t give two shits about a few foreign women being sold on various black markets across the planet. But Hector had made a big mistake.. That mistake came in the form of a Eliza Santos. The girl was on vacation or maybe some kind of outreach mission in Mexico, I guess she ended up in the wrong area because she’d gotten abducted by a few local thugs.
Now, like I said, the US normally doesn’t care when a foreign girl goes missing. Hell, they don’t even normally care if an American girl goes missing. But this girl, she was the daughter of some rich asshat from Arizona. The local thugs didn’t know who she was and wound up selling her to someone who did. That someone, Hector Ramirez…..
Myself and a team of three other operators arrived in Rio De Janeiro at dusk. We met with our CIA liaison at his hotel, it was one of those fancy Gideon Buildings. Tallest building in that area of the city. We met Agent Rios on the eighty-fifth floor. No, he was not part of the SNOD group. He was just a regular spook. We met him in his hotel room. He sat at a desk on his laptop. Barely even acknowledging us as we walked in. I say hotel room very loosely. The room was more like a large apartment. It had several bedrooms and a living area that Rios had already decked out with a few tables that had our gear already pre set out.
Sergeant Jenkins was the first one into the room. He was the man in charge of our little squad. This wasn’t the first time I’d been deployed with him. He was always someone I’d enjoyed having around. Even if he was kind of an asshole. He’d saved my life several times. He always worked within the teams best interest. He walked straight up to Agent Rios. The CIA agent stood up, he was a thin man with some board shorts and a pink collared shirt on. He was quite literally dwarfed by Jenkins six foot five frame.
“Sergeant..” Rios said calmly as he stepped around Jenkins and pulled a piece of paper off the printer.
“Agent Rios… What’s it been two? Three years?” Jenkins asked.
Rios didn’t say a word. He put the paper on his desk next to his laptop and went back to work. Meanwhile my other two team mates Sampson and Diaz had already started messing with their gear.
“How’s the leg?“ Jenkins asked Rios.
Rios looked down at the grey metal prosthetic leg that was attached to him at the knee. I hadn’t even noticed it until Jenkins had said something. Rios took a deep breath and then looked back up at Jenkins.
“I’ll have you know… I originally requested Company Mercenaries for this job. But apparently it’s not in the CIA budget to afford them for this operation. So now, I’m stuck with you. Which means we’re all probably gonna die.”
Jenkins raised a brow at Rios, who only shot him a shit eating grin. Two seconds later both men had begun laughing.
“So, I take it you two know each other?” I asked.
Jenkins turned back to me. “Corporal Briggs, this is Agent Rios. I ran ops with him when I was a Corporal and he was a Staff Sergeant.”
“Until the bomb took my leg off.” Agent Rios added.
“Fucking Bangkok!” Jenkins said.
“Oh yeah? You look a little skinny to be former Special Forces!” Diaz broke in from the weapons table.
“Diaz, he’s like an inch shorter then you?” Sampson replied.
“Okay? And? I said skinny, not tall!” Diaz said.
Rios didn’t reply, he just looked and Jenkins and smirked.
“Did you read the briefing?” he asked.
“You think I can read! That’s hilarious!” Jenkins joked.
Rios looked at him for a second. Then Jenkins sighed.
“Yeah.. I read it. I didn’t like it. But I read it.” Jenkins said as he rubbed his greasy red hair.
“What’s not to like?” Rios asked.
“The part where we’re trusting local law enforcement. You and I both know they’ll shoot us in the back the first chance they get.”
“Yeah. I get that. But if everything goes according to plan, we won’t even see them.”
I’ll give it to Rios, the man had planned it well. Ramirez was keeping Miss Santos in a penthouse at the edge of the city. It was a taller building, maybe only four to five stories. He’d been watching the house for a week now and knew exactly how many guards there were and what their routines consisted of. The plan was to have the Police department come knocking and start a shit storm on the first level to basically serve as a distraction while we zip lined onto the roof from a nearby building and entered that way. According to Rios, Ramirez only had four guards in the building because he didn’t wanna bring too much attention to himself. He figured if the police caused enough problems that they’d all come down stairs. We’d be in and out before the shitstorm was over. Of course….. That’s what the plan was.
The building we were supposed to zip line from was a cheap run down club. One that had been closed down for months. I didn’t know why, and I didn’t really care. The building was empty. Rios led us to the roof where he set up with a bolt action sniper rifle. He started looking at the building through his scope while Jenkins and Diaz set up the line on our end.
“Police should be on scene any second now.” Rios said calmly.
I squatted down next to him. I could see straight into the Ramirez penthouse. The man sat at his desk looking at a piece of paper. The building we were on was maybe fifty yards away from the penthouse so I couldn’t make out any distinct features on the man. Just that he was wearing a red dress shirt.
“You know how easily you could just put one in him from right here?” I asked.
“I wish.. I hate human traffickers.” Rios said.
It was at that moment that a SWAT truck pulled up to the front of the building. It’s lights were off, but I could still see it in the light of the full moon.
“Just one SWAT truck?” I asked.
I could hear Rios shift next to me.
“They’re not here to make an arrest. There here to do what we paid them too.”
The truck stopped outside the front of the building and the back doors flung open. Several men in black tactical uniforms sprung out, all wielding assault rifles.
“Briggs, the line is ready. Once this shit starts, send the harpoon.” Jenkins said from behind me.
I turned to him and nodded. Then back to the SWAT team as they approached the front door. One of the men stepped out in front of the group and knocked. The door opened, he raised his weapon, and opened fire without a word. The SWAT team all funneled into the front door.
“Guards are moving downstairs! Whenever your ready!” Rios said.
This wasn’t your atypical police operation. This was just straight up murder. I exhaled as I got to my feet and aimed the harpoon. This whole operation unsettled me in my stomach. That was when I noticed Ramirez standing at the window now. He was looking straight at us.
“Is he? Can he see us?” I asked.
Rios shifted, “What the fuck?” he asked softly.
Like I said earlier, I couldn’t make out the man’s facial expressions. But I could feel his eyes on me.
“Uhh Jenkins? Take a look at this.” I said.
I could hear Jenkins walk up next to me. He raised his M4, looking through the scope that was attached to it.
“He’s definitely looking straight at us.”
“Yep!” Said Rios.
“Shoot the fucker!” I replied.
I could hear Rios exhale. “Orders are to take him alive and extract the girl. I- wait a minute!” He said.
The gunfire in the building had suddenly stopped. Rios shifted as to look through his scope into some of the buildings windows on the first floor.
“Well that’s not good.” he said.
“What?” asked Jenkins.
Suddenly, a man in black tactical gear was launched out one of the buildings second floor windows. His body splattered when it made contact with the street. My eyes grew large as my heart jumped into my chest. I looked at the body before my eyes shot to the window it had flown in from. A man stood there. Or at least the silhouette of one. Another figure that I couldn’t really make out.
“Guys! Hector’s gone!” Jenkins said.
Hector had vanished from the window. Then I heard the squelching noise from behind me. Both Jenkins and I turned. Only to see Diaz’s headless body hit the concrete. A tall thin man stood where he’d been. A man with a dark black trench coat and wide brimmed hat on. His face wore a thick bushy beard that was matted with blood. His skin was pale, almost a paper white. He had a massive Bowie knife in one hand and Diaz’s head in the other.
Jenkins and I both raised our rifles to fire. But before we could get shots off the man was inches from Jenkins, his knife was already buried to its handle in the man’s neck. I tried to bring my rifle around to shoot him but he threw Diaz’s head at me. The severed head hit me square in the jaw and I tripped over Rios, who was still struggling to get up. I could hear several gunshots go off as Sampson had opened up with his rifle. I watch several bullets pierce the man’s back, blood exploded from his trench coat. But the man turned and launched the knife across the roof and into Sampson’s face. The man turned to me and smirked. Rios was on his side in between us. He raised his sniper rifle and fired. The bullet hit the man in the center of his chest. The man winced in pain. But it didn’t deter him. He reached out and grabbed the rifle by the barrell, then yanked it from Rio’s hand.
“Agent Devin Rios!” The man said with a smile, exposing a set of white teeth with two sharpened k-9s.
“What the hell are you?” Rios asked.
I reached for my side arm and started to pull it. The man’s eyes shot to me.
“Corporal Briggs, I’ll get with you in a minute. You know that gun won’t work.”
“How do you know our names?” I asked.
“I said I’ll get with you in a minute.” He growled as he reached down and pulled Rios to his feet. “Now… Agent Rios, answer me this… Who does a cartel boss hire, when they need some people killed?”
He held Rios up by his throat. I could hear the man struggling to breathe. I raised my pistol and fired a volley of shots into the man’s chest and head. This didn’t do anything but annoy him. He he grunted a bit as he rolled his eyes.
“God damn it Corporal Briggs! I said I’ll be with you in a minute!” He turned his attention back to Rios. “Now, back to us… Mr. Rios, what does a cartel boss hire, when he needs someone killed?”
Rios struggled for a second against the man’s grip. I noticed the Agent’s hand as it grabbed at his prosthetic leg. His fingers managed to wrap around it where it met his actual leg.
“The answer.. Is he hires a Sicario.” He looked at me, “That means hitman in Spanish!”
“They speak Portuguese in Brazil you racist asshole!” Rios said as he yanked his prosthetic leg off
The man raised a brow, “Hector is from Mexico?” He replied as his confused eyes went to the prosthetic limb. That was when I noticed a small metallic ring on the side of the leg, one that Rio’s thumb was snaking its way through.
“Run!” Rios grunted.
My eyes grew large as I took off towards the edge of the roof. I didn’t see the explosion. But I know its what knocked me off the roof. I should have died. But it just so happened that I landed on a roof to a building that was adjacent to ours. I’d only fallen maybe fifteen feet. It didn’t matter though. I can remember coming too and the man standing over me. His clothes were covered in blood and bits of flesh. He looked annoyed.
“Welp! Mr. Briggs, I’d kill ya now. But there wouldn’t be no fun in that, would there?”
“What?” I asked as things started to go black.
The man squatted down next to me. “Look special forces boy. I’m sure you’re gonna come looking for revenge at some point. You wouldn’t be the first. Maybe you’ll get lucky though. Maybe you’ll be the last.”
The next thing I knew I woke up a few days later in a hospital bed all the fuckin way in Texas. My head hurt like hell. I can’t remember the hospital room details very well. I do remember the two men that were waiting for me when I woke up. One was a grey headed man wearing a black suit. He had an annoyed expression on his leathery face. Then there was the man with gelled back jet black hair. He sat next to me as he rubbed the dark stubble on his chin while looking at a vanilla colored envelope.
“Shaw.” The grey headed man said sternly as he noticed me.
Shaw looked at me and scoffed, “I told you he’d wake up.” The man said.
“Shut up Shaw.” the grey headed man replied.
“Who? Where?” I started to ask. My head hurt so bad it was hard to get the words out.
“Who are you? Who are we? Or where are you? Which one are you trying to ask?” Shaw asked.
I stared at the man for a second. He just sighed and looked back at the older man. The older man crossed his arms.
“I am Alan Jones, this is Cameron Shaw. We’re with the CIA. You’re fine, you’re in a hospital in San Antonio.” The grey headed man said.
“San Antonio? How the fuck?” I started.
“It’s a long story. Anyway, we have some questions for you regarding the deaths of your teammates.” Shaw said.
It took a second to come back to me. I could feel their eyes on me.
“Is the girl dead?” I asked.
“The girl?” Shaw replied quizzically.
“The rich assholes daughter. The reason we went into that god forsaken place.”
The two looked at each other. Then Jones looked back at me.
“We don’t know anything about a girl.” Jones started.
I was more then a little confused at this point and I think my face showed it. I glanced at Shaw, who flipped to another page in his envelope and showed me.
“What we do know about, is ten dead Brazilian cops, four dead Americans, and a man who the surviving police officers claim could move faster then they could see.” Shaw said as I looked down at the file.
There was a picture on there, one of the same bearded man who’d killed my team. Only this picture looked older, it was of the man, except he was posing outside of the World Trade Center. He didn’t look any different. Roughly the same age as he did in Brazil.
“This was taken in seventy-one.” Shaw said.
“Look familiar?” asked Jones.
“Yeah. We shot him maybe seven or eight times and he didn’t die. Hell, Rios blew up a leg grenade in his face and it didn’t do shit.” I said.
Then it hit me what Shaw had said. “Wait? You said this was taken in seventy-one?” I asked.
Shaw calmly took the picture from my hands.
“What is he? A fuckin vampire?” I asked.
Shaw just eyed Jones who sighed and crossed his arms.
“He’s a member of the Black Guard. A very dangerous one too.” Shaw said.
I shot Shaw a confused glance. Shaw only chuckled.
“Yes.. He’s a vampire. They call him Jericho.” Jones added.
I laughed nervously. Did these guys hear themselves. “Oh this has to be some kind of joke.” I said.
“Do I look like the kind of guy that jokes around?” Jones asked.
I looked at the man’s stern face. He and I both knew the answer to that question.
“Shit.” I mumbled.
I took a second to think. “So what kind of CIA agents are you?”
“We hunt the things that go bump in the night.” Shaw bragged.
Looking back on it. That was probably the cringiest thing he ever said to me.
“Are you going after him?” I asked.
“We are.” Shaw replied.
That was when I made the dumbest mistake of my adult life. All in the name of revenge. Something inside of me yearned for it. I couldn’t let their deaths mean nothing.
“I want in.” I said.
Shaw smirked as he turned back to Jones. The grey headed man rolled his eyes. Shaw turned back to me.
“Well kid, I gotta be honest, we were hoping you’d say that.”